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Nuclear matters

dspp
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Nuclear matters

#102568

Postby dspp » December 7th, 2017, 6:45 pm

Power from [small modular] mini nuclear plants 'would cost more than from large ones'
UK government study finds electricity would be nearly one-third pricier than it would from plants such as Hinkley Point C. Electricity from the first mini nuclear power stations in Britain would be likely to be more expensive than from large atomic plants such as Hinkley Point C, according to a government study. Power from small modular reactors (SMRs) would cost nearly one-third more than conventional large ones in 2031, the report found, because of reduced economies of scale and the costs of deploying first-of-a-kind technology. The analysis by the consultancy Atkins for the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy said there was “a great deal of uncertainty with regards to the economics” of the smaller reactors.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... ey-point-c
https://www.gov.uk/government/publicati ... assessment

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Re: Nuclear matters

#108174

Postby Cluckyduck » January 5th, 2018, 4:08 pm

SMRs are not new or first of a kind.

Take one Rolls Royce Nuclear power plant from a Submarine and get it to turn an electrical generator rather than a propeller. The core design proven as will be the heat exchanger circuit.

Politics the real game changer here. Big Nuclear built by the French in a couple of location around the UK or small modular reactors manufactured by RR in several locations?

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Re: Nuclear matters

#108215

Postby dspp » January 5th, 2018, 6:27 pm

Cd,

Thank you, I appreciate that, though you are right to say this as many do not know this. Though to be fair the RR approach to SMR is not the only one, there is the SA/Arg approach as well which is definitely not a sub reactor on wheels. The sub-reuse versions suffer from poor operating economics, difficult safety cases (can't assume surrounded by water), and less than obvious build costs and security issues. Oh, and the minor matter of getting all the personnel required. That's before we get to spent fuel issues. I am as you might guess somewhat sceptical. We will see.

On a related note here is a helpful recent overview of the Hitachi BWR in the proposed UK application by EM, that has just passed the UK GDA:
http://euanmearns.com/the-hitachi-advan ... r-reactor/
What's not to like ?

regards, dspp

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Re: Nuclear matters

#108279

Postby jackdaww » January 6th, 2018, 8:15 am

dspp wrote:Cd,

. That's before we get to spent fuel issues.

http://euanmearns.com/the-hitachi-advan ... r-reactor/


regards, dspp


=============================

the article looks interesting , but due to attention span issues , i havnt read it all .

i presume though the issue of spent fuel waste remains --

ie still a half life of 10,000 years -- yes TEN THOUSAND YEARS .

:x

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Re: Nuclear matters

#108391

Postby gbjbaanb » January 6th, 2018, 6:54 pm

TEN THOUSA.... oh,. who cares there's shiny on facebook!

(well, you did say you had a short attention span :P )

Nuclear waste isn't as bad as is made out in the media, its not sludge that leaks out into the environment after dodgy subcontractors chuck it in a layby (that practically used to happen back in the days when nuclear power was in its infancy and is where we get the idea its terrible). The waste today is turned to glass blocks and then put far away and only 3% of the total waste is known as High-level and is dangerous, and even than 1/3rd of it can be reprocessed for use as fuel in nuclear power plants!

Incidentally nuclear fission has occurred naturally - in what is not Gabon, a nuclear reaction occurred in a rich vein of uranium ore that (apparently) went on for 500,000 years! OK it was 2 billion years ago, but still - fun fact!

But either way,m the cost of decomissioning all nuclear is already accounted for in the cost of nuclear power, something other technologies do not consider. And also some molten-salt SMRs are designed to use nuclear waste as fuel - Hitachi's PRISM supposedly could use up all the UKs plutonium waste as fuel in 60 years.


Anyway, back to the topic - a recentish study by Texas uni found that the cost of fuel for SMRs would be 15 to 70% more than for big reactors. however, fuel is considered to be the smallest factor in nuclear power, compared to the cost of building, running, securing and de-commissioning the reactor. but I reckon SMRs will turn out to be more like the molten-salt reactors rather than little uranium reactors of the past, that makes the discussion more interesting as the tech progresses. Soon we'll be able to buy thorium SMRs direct from China, with Chinese money bypassing the French completely!!

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Re: Nuclear matters

#108551

Postby dspp » January 7th, 2018, 3:46 pm

mmmm ...... apologies, but it looks like the Euan Mearns blogposts re nuclear are in fact guest posts by Andy Dawson, once again apologies to AD.

Anyway here is his other heads up re the GDA status of the Chinese “Hualong 1” passes the first stage of the UK GDA process (a evolved PWR):

http://euanmearns.com/chinas-hualong-1- ... more-20277

In reading this and the ABWR one noted below a couple of things

- from first concrete to first power is faster with these than with the RR-SMR
- and more of the key stuff is done in a factory environment than a RR-PWR
- there is less chance of getting a radioactive primary than with the RR-PWR
- and AD sees a fair chance of the UK ending up with 5-10 more nukes
- but if I read correctly he doesn't much fancy the chances of many of them being Hink-C style EPWRs

regards, dspp

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Re: Nuclear matters

#113671

Postby Cluckyduck » January 27th, 2018, 2:11 pm

http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/NP-SM ... 01185.html

This is a good site for news. While I am not convinced SMRs will prevail or even whose design I do believe that the push towards a global reduction in carbon use will include more Nuclear Power Plants.

Am I sold on the idea of a Russian or Chinese built reactor? Not very but willing to keep an open mind. Would prefer a proven French design for a large scale site and an almost totally automated SMR design for smaller tactical applications.

Have invested in several Uranium Miners and down a few £k. Watching the news and uranium prices carefully.

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Re: Nuclear matters

#218059

Postby dspp » April 29th, 2019, 8:44 am

Moderator Message:
This post copied across from PD to here at request of TMB

TheMotorcycleBoy wrote:
Nimrod103 wrote:I googled for 'french nuclear power', and it came up as number 3 on the list. I don't subscribe to the FT. Gridwatch you can view for free.

Thanks I got there in the end. (Had to remove the "ft.com" cookie too, then I relaunched my browser).

Yes - I see what you mean.

But it's no cause for jubilation for any us (Brits or continentals). I found another FT article (google "ft european pressurised reactors").

It was my first hit:

The French stress test for nuclear power | Financial Times
https://www.ft.com/content/7c68a702-57c ... 677d2e1ce8


Quoting a little bit from it:
It is an increasingly common exercise across China as the country expands its nuclear sector to meet soaring energy demand. But fuel loading at Taishan — one of the last steps before it starts producing electricity — carries wider significance beyond China.

Taishan, operated by China General Nuclear Power Corp, the state-owned energy company, is on course to become, within months, the first plant in the world to operate a European Pressurised Reactor — the Franco-German technology plagued by delays and cost overruns since it was designed in the 1990s.

What resonates is that re. Nuclear Power China rules the waves. Perhaps none in the Eurozone have invested enough into the prescribed "No Chernobyl here please" checks in operation. If you do read the article I suggested you'll see a diagram detailing some of the safety mechanisms, interestingly featuring a "core catcher". Which sounds somewhat ominous.....

I wonder if even the Yanks or Russkies have developed equivalent yet. Doubt it, one has adequate fossil fuels, the other's administration has it's head up it's rear end

Matt

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Re: Nuclear matters

#218060

Postby dspp » April 29th, 2019, 8:45 am

Moderator Message:
This post copied across from PD to here at request of TMB


The Yanks went down another nuclear pathway that failed, and have instead reverted to coal & gas, increasingly with wind & solar, with coal now being squeezed out.

The Russian design begat Chernobyl and that pathway has been dead in the water ever since, except for them and client states.

The European design is the EBRD [should be EPR]one that, rather pointedly the Chinese are now getting to market (and first power) ahead of the French, despite the extremely long headstart the French had for themselves (and the Finns)*.

The ones you missed out are the South Koreans who are doing a good job on nuclear sequential builds, with all the concommittant benefits. Of course a large nuclear industry is attractive if you have no O&G, and if you might want to be a nuclear weapon breakout state in a hurry. Which is the real reason .....

Ditto for the Japanese except Fukushima spoilt the plot.

This is a long way from Brexit, except to note that none of the above includes the UK. Who are reduced to begging the French and Chinese to build the stuff for them. Which pretty much makes the UK worse than the the collective EU in this regard. Not that I would put civil nuclear power high on my list of pissing contest yardsticks. Except that the same holds true for all heavy engineering / manufacturing of power generation technologies.

regards, dspp

* last week I was dining with some Finns. One of them commented that his father had now retired, and was at a union with his fellow retired once-students. One of whom was counting himself lucky to not have won the job of project manager for that Finnish EBRD that still is not operational.

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Re: Nuclear matters

#218062

Postby dspp » April 29th, 2019, 8:49 am

Moderator Message:
This post copied across from PD to here at request of TMB


So I am correct to assume that the main reason why the Europeans (in particular the Brits) are pretty crap at building nuclear power plants, is quite plainly because we have no privately owned (or government funded) companies which have put enough money down for the R&D required to fund the building of a new generation of "Safer" nuclear plants?

In other words does it come down to a lack of investment in the most part?

So is the reason why our NPG capacity is being scaled back is because the old ones need decommisioning to stop them becoming Chernobyls, and we don't have the £££ down to design, test and build the newer safer ones?

thanks Matt

PS I see what you mean about S. Korea pushing ahead fast with their NP research. Economic and Strategic.

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Re: Nuclear matters

#218084

Postby dspp » April 29th, 2019, 9:57 am

Matt,

In essence you are asking why "the Brits and other Europeans are crap at building civil nuclear power plant". At your request I have relocated this & the preceding posts here as this is a better location for them than down in one of the many Brexit threads.

I should preface what I am about to say with the caveat that, whilst I know a lot more about nuclear matters than the average person, I am not a nuclear specialist. A long time ago I chose not to be in that pathway. So it is the area of the energy sector that I am least knowledgeable about, though I continue to read about it and chat to friends around the world who are closer than I am. I would be extremely interested to read comments by anyone with greater insight than me. That said ...

Personally I think that the French company Framatome (now variously Areva and latterly EDF) and the German company Siemens did as good a job as any of designing and building second generation nuclear power stations. Their peer competitors were notably Westinghouse who essentially commercially failed in the USA but were commercially successful with various partners in Asia. So I don't think that one can take the view that the Europeans in general are bad at this, as in fact they have been at least as good as their peers, perhaps more so.

If one sets aside fuel disposal matters, then conventional civil nuclear power could be characterised as being engineering of large scale, safety-critical, capital intensive, heavy industrial projects with a very significant up front R&D and design investment, against extremely strong economic competition from substitutes. Therefore in order for an industrial organisation to remain viable and have the potential to be successful it would need a committed long term investor/shareholder base; a commited long term soft-captive market; a strong but supportive safety regulator; a diverse and resilient tier 1/2 manufacturer/constructor ecosystem; and a science & engineering skillpool of considerable depth and breadth. All of these have to be sustained over generations with no gap in continuity as it is almost impossible to reconstitute them once they have been eroded.

Quite simply the smaller the host-nation the more difficult it is to put the critical factors together and then to sustain them in the civil field. Even the Argentines and Israelis struggled, and they had particular zeal and motivation. Add in the complications of operating in a unstable political environment with emotionally-driven factions trying to cause an industry's downfall and it becomes nigh-on impossible to succeed, because sustained political will is vital in order for design & project finance to be available at reasonable rates. Ultimately this is why in Europe first the British & Swedish pulled the plug on domestic 'design' ownership (BNFL sold Westinghouse to Toshiba in 2006, after having taken over the ABB civil nuclear business in 2000), then in 2011 Germany with Siemens exited, folding its nuclear remnants into Areva with whom they were already cooperating in the third generation EPR design. Even EDF who are the new owners of Areva are beginning to prioritise renewables, as quite simply the economics of renewables are looking so compelling, and with relatively few of the downside liabilities.

The Chinese, the Koreans, the Indians, the Taiwanese, and the Japanese have all had strong & sustained political support for civil nuclear, which has in Japan's case even managed to endure post-Fukushima (albeit weakened). That political support is eased by some of those countries having been limited democracies for some or all of the last 70-years; again eased by the relatively small domestic oil & gas reserves of these countries; and further eased as a very significant consideration is the non-civil aspects of nuclear power. You do not have to be, ahem, a rocket scientist to figure out one of the reason why these countries want a large domestic nuclear industry.

What I am very reluctant to say is that build standards are in any way lower at the Chinese EPR unit (Taishan 1) that has now gone into operation (Dec 2018). I recently had to get some pressure vessels cast at a foundry. Basically our options came down to Chinese foundries or Indian ones. We went with China and the results were good. This is consistent with a long line of similar work they have done for our partners. The UK was a non-starter. I am in and out of Chinese and Indian heavy-industry factories quite a lot, and they are as good as any I see around the world. So too is the Chinese ability to run a project well. So although I constantly hear people denigrating Asian build standards I am very reluctant to do so myself as I have no evidence. That is not to say that absence of evidence is evidence of absence of course.

Some useful links:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPR_(nuclear_reactor)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westingho ... ic_Company
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_p ... th_century
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosatom

I think that Europe (i.e. the EU) will be able to keep a civil nuclear base going, likewise the Chinese and the USA. I am unsure whether Europe will choose to do so, but I expect that - at least for the duration of the third generation plants (i.e. the next 50-years) it will keep a viable minimum going - if only because that is one of the foundations for the French nuclear industrial base that also supports their submarine (and aircraft carrier) nuclear reactors, and indirectly, their warheads. Also they do need to get some more EPRs built in France as otherwise they will have too big a cliff-edge of the second generation plants retiring imho.

The British are stuffed in so many respects in the nuclear field, and even more so on a Brexit pathway. But that is a whole 'nother story. But in civil energy sector terms I really don't think it matters for the UK as I now think that gas/wind/solar (and the minorities of biomass, hydro, etc) are sufficient for the UK's needs.

regards, dspp

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Re: Nuclear matters

#218214

Postby TheMotorcycleBoy » April 29th, 2019, 5:26 pm

dspp wrote:Matt,

In essence you are asking why "the Brits and other Europeans are crap at building civil nuclear power plant". At your request I have relocated this & the preceding posts here as this is a better location for them than down in one of the many Brexit threads.

I should preface what I am about to say with the caveat that, whilst I know a lot more about nuclear matters than the average person, I am not a nuclear specialist. A long time ago I chose not to be in that pathway. So it is the area of the energy sector that I am least knowledgeable about, though I continue to read about it and chat to friends around the world who are closer than I am. I would be extremely interested to read comments by anyone with greater insight than me. That said ...

Hi Dave,

Many thanks for taking the time to pull together the earlier posts and to answer my question. I'm slowly reading your reply, and whilst doing so, trying to compile some more info.

These ones start to define different reactor types:

http://www.radioactivity.eu.com/site/pa ... actors.htm
https://inis.iaea.org/collection/NCLCol ... 078368.pdf

Anyway let's get back to reading your post.

Matt

EDIT:
So a Gen I reactor uses natural uranium, a Gen II uses enriched. I think.

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Re: Nuclear matters

#218227

Postby TheMotorcycleBoy » April 29th, 2019, 5:57 pm

dspp wrote:If one sets aside fuel disposal matters, then conventional civil nuclear power could be characterised as being engineering of large scale, safety-critical, capital intensive, heavy industrial projects with a very significant up front R&D and design investment, against extremely strong economic competition from substitutes. Therefore in order for an industrial organisation to remain viable and have the potential to be successful it would need a committed long term investor/shareholder base; a commited long term soft-captive market; a strong but supportive safety regulator; a diverse and resilient tier 1/2 manufacturer/constructor ecosystem; and a science & engineering skillpool of considerable depth and breadth. All of these have to be sustained over generations with no gap in continuity as it is almost impossible to reconstitute them once they have been eroded.

Quite simply the smaller the host-nation the more difficult it is to put the critical factors together and then to sustain them in the civil field. Even the Argentines and Israelis struggled, and they had particular zeal and motivation. Add in the complications of operating in a unstable political environment with emotionally-driven factions trying to cause an industry's downfall and it becomes nigh-on impossible to succeed, because sustained political will is vital in order for design & project finance to be available at reasonable rates. Ultimately this is why in Europe first the British & Swedish pulled the plug on domestic 'design' ownership (BNFL sold Westinghouse to Toshiba in 2006, after having taken over the ABB civil nuclear business in 2000), then in 2011 Germany with Siemens exited, folding its nuclear remnants into Areva with whom they were already cooperating in the third generation EPR design. Even EDF who are the new owners of Areva are beginning to prioritise renewables, as quite simply the economics of renewables are looking so compelling, and with relatively few of the downside liabilities.

It's pretty easy to see how this type of thing won't survive over here:

From what I can glean all the corporations working on nuclear power over here were publicly-funded, i.e. nationalised industries

http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/C_BNF ... 10103.html
https://www.village4a1000years.com/1945 ... blishment/

well that's my take on it.

The Chinese, the Koreans, the Indians, the Taiwanese, and the Japanese have all had strong & sustained political support for civil nuclear, which has in Japan's case even managed to endure post-Fukushima (albeit weakened). That political support is eased by some of those countries having been limited democracies for some or all of the last 70-years; again eased by the relatively small domestic oil & gas reserves of these countries; and further eased as a very significant consideration is the non-civil aspects of nuclear power. You do not have to be, ahem, a rocket scientist to figure out one of the reason why these countries want a large domestic nuclear industry.

Sure, no surprise really.

The British are stuffed in so many respects in the nuclear field, and even more so on a Brexit pathway. But that is a whole 'nother story. But in civil energy sector terms I really don't think it matters for the UK as I now think that gas/wind/solar (and the minorities of biomass, hydro, etc) are sufficient for the UK's needs.

It does sound to me, that it would require the kind of public subsidy, for which we'd lack the political will for over here.

thanks again
Matt

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Re: Nuclear matters

#218273

Postby AsleepInYorkshire » April 29th, 2019, 8:52 pm

dspp wrote:The British are stuffed in so many respects in the nuclear field, and even more so on a Brexit pathway. But that is a whole 'nother story. But in civil energy sector terms I really don't think it matters for the UK as I now think that gas/wind/solar (and the minorities of biomass, hydro, etc) are sufficient for the UK's needs.


1) If we plant an area twice the size of the UK we will be able to use that to meet our power needs. We would be left with nowhere to live or grow crops or build schools or roads.
2) In 2015 the UK received about 7% of it's power through renewables
3) If we cover 4% of the UK in solar panels we will meet our power needs. This would take up an area roughly six times the size of London. This power would not be available during the night time with current technologies.
4) If we cover 5% of the UK in wind turbines we will meet our power needs. This would take up an area roughly eight times the size of London. This power would not be available when the wind doesn't blow with current technologies.
5) In 2015 renewables and nuclear energy accounted for 14% of our energy needs
6) If we were to rely on nuclear power alone we would need 60 large nuclear power stations. However, the downside is that we cannot always match output of nuclear power stations with demand. In addition there is the issue of the waste it produces.
7) Approximately 58% of all the energy we produce is lost in conversion to electricity.

If we accept that fossil fuels produce carbon dioxide and contribute to global warming then the reality is we are facing some incredibly tough choices. That is if we want to reduce our carbon footprint and maintain our power supply.

AiY

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Re: Nuclear matters

#218314

Postby TheMotorcycleBoy » April 30th, 2019, 6:03 am

AsleepInYorkshire wrote:6) If we were to rely on nuclear power alone we would need 60 large nuclear power stations. However, the downside is that we cannot always match output of nuclear power stations with demand.

The way I'm interpreting this is that after supplying the reactor core with replenished/new fuel rods you can't "turn it up" any more. Additionally the control to "turn it down" (introduction of moderating material) is similarly fixed due to physical arrangements.

In other words, it's not like a gas cooker or a diesel engine with an almost completely variable throttle type mechanism.

Matt

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Re: Nuclear matters

#218492

Postby dspp » April 30th, 2019, 4:56 pm

TheMotorcycleBoy wrote:
AsleepInYorkshire wrote:6) If we were to rely on nuclear power alone we would need 60 large nuclear power stations. However, the downside is that we cannot always match output of nuclear power stations with demand.

The way I'm interpreting this is that after supplying the reactor core with replenished/new fuel rods you can't "turn it up" any more. Additionally the control to "turn it down" (introduction of moderating material) is similarly fixed due to physical arrangements.

In other words, it's not like a gas cooker or a diesel engine with an almost completely variable throttle type mechanism.

Matt


Matt,
The outcome is that nukes don't like being controlled up or down. This is so even for submarine propulsion reactors that need to do this. In a sense at a strategic level that is all we need to know. At a technical level I am told that the reasons for this are considerably more complex than you hint at (think, for example, of the fatigue issues arising from thermal cycling). So there are things in reactors that have cyclic lifetimes, as well as things in reactors that have calendar lifetimes, and others that have usage lifetimes, and I am sure if one digs into the detail most things are really a combination of all three. So even if one CAN ramp a reactor up and down quickly, one might CHOOSE not to do so in order to get better through-life economics.
regards, dspp

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Re: Nuclear matters

#218494

Postby dspp » April 30th, 2019, 5:11 pm

AsleepInYorkshire wrote:
dspp wrote:The British are stuffed in so many respects in the nuclear field, and even more so on a Brexit pathway. But that is a whole 'nother story. But in civil energy sector terms I really don't think it matters for the UK as I now think that gas/wind/solar (and the minorities of biomass, hydro, etc) are sufficient for the UK's needs.


3) If we cover 4% of the UK in solar panels we will meet our power needs. This would take up an area roughly six times the size of London. This power would not be available during the night time with current technologies.

7) Approximately 58% of all the energy we produce is lost in conversion to electricity.

If we accept that fossil fuels produce carbon dioxide and contribute to global warming then the reality is we are facing some incredibly tough choices. That is if we want to reduce our carbon footprint and maintain our power supply.

AiY


AiY,

A few quick fallacies there I think, but thank you for the numbers etc to pick at.

a) Not all uses are exclusive. Putting wind turbines in the countryside does not stop the land being farmed. Ditto putting solar panels on the roofs does not stop the building(s) being used. Oh, and there is quite a lot of sea to put things in as well.

b) Actually the power is available in the night time (or when the wind stops blowing) with current (lithium) storage technologies. And the occasions when such occur is not as often as one might think. And there is a 'retirement' advantage to take into account (I term this a first-retirer-benefit, it would not recur (say) 30-years on). This is when you retire (say) a gas turbine from 'normal' use a few years earlier than planned (say, 2), but then hold it on standby for the next 20 years (at say, a very high usage fraction of 10%). Net result is no additional capex spend, and provided that the gas turbine in 'intermittency' service costs less than the (say) battery costs then all are happy.

c) Thermal energy sources tend to lose about 2/3 in conversion to electricity. But if you are starting with solar or wind there is no thermal stage. Yes one cares about the efficiency, but not in the sense you are intimating of being 'wasteful'. One cares because one is trying to find a economic/technical optimum design.

d) We can reduce our carbon footprint and maintain our power supply. The real issue is the forwards shift in cash expenditure which impacts this generation (that pays) more than subsequent generations (who benefit from near zero fuel purchases). This is a spend timing issue which can be solved when you realise the overall quantum is not that great. If we care enough.

It is not easy, but it can be done. Not doing it could be very much worse.

regards, dspp

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Re: Nuclear matters

#218520

Postby TheMotorcycleBoy » April 30th, 2019, 6:38 pm

dspp wrote:Matt,
The outcome is that nukes don't like being controlled up or down. This is so even for submarine propulsion reactors that need to do this. In a sense at a strategic level that is all we need to know. At a technical level I am told that the reasons for this are considerably more complex than you hint at (think, for example, of the fatigue issues arising from thermal cycling). So there are things in reactors that have cyclic lifetimes, as well as things in reactors that have calendar lifetimes, and others that have usage lifetimes, and I am sure if one digs into the detail most things are really a combination of all three. So even if one CAN ramp a reactor up and down quickly, one might CHOOSE not to do so in order to get better through-life economics.
regards, dspp

I see what you mean. All sorts of reasons for why it's better just to let those things run nice and steady regardless of demand.

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Re: Nuclear matters

#218525

Postby TheMotorcycleBoy » April 30th, 2019, 6:51 pm

Well we live in the Fens and there are Wind Turbines all over the place. Loads of wind farms, since we have so much flat windy farm land. Just glancing out of the window I can see the 5 we have just over a mile away. There's almost zero breeze and they moving very very slowly. I'm pretty sure that at times, when we've had very serious gales they used to shut them down. I'm not sure whether they still do, but when they do, I assume it's done out for safety considerations.

We are starting to find several large farm buildings are getting PV panels put on them out here as well.

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Re: Nuclear matters

#218771

Postby scotia » May 1st, 2019, 5:24 pm

TheMotorcycleBoy wrote:. I'm pretty sure that at times, when we've had very serious gales they used to shut them down. I'm not sure whether they still do, but when they do, I assume it's done out for safety considerations.

Yes - above a certain wind speed the wind turbines cease generating. Some years ago I was shown a graph of actual wind power generation versus time (in Scotland) on a very windy day. As the wind increased, so did the wind power generation, then suddenly the wind power generation plunged to near zero as the wind speed reached a critical level. In such a circumstance there is a need to plan ahead (on the basis of forecasts) to quickly bring on alternative power generators. This has become increasingly difficult with the closure of so many fossil fuelled power stations. In Scotland, I think that Peterhead is the last such power station. As mentioned in earlier posts, Nuclear Power Stations run continuously at a fixed level, so cannot help, however conventional and pumped storage hydro can help, although only slightly if there is a country-wide shut down of wind generation (for wind speeds above 50mph).
This loss of traditional fossil fuelled power stations has also created a problem if a black start is required. A black start assumes a catastrophic failure of the entire power system, and the need to start it up from zero power generation. The UK system would be split into areas, and there have been some estimates that suggest it could take up to 5 days to see the Scottish Area return to normal.


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